Fentanyl killer who poisoned married couple to steal their business jailed

An IT worker and double murderer who befriended a married couple before poisoning them with fentanyl has been jailed for life.

Luke D’Wit, 34, created multiple online personas to manipulate Stephen Baxter and Carol Baxter and later changed them The will made him a director of their bath mat company.

Mrs Baxter, 64, and her husband, 61, were found dead in armchairs at their home in West Mersey, Essex, on Easter Sunday last year.

During the 999 call, DeWitt can be heard calmly answering the phone and describing himself as a “friend” of the family before making a false statement.

Although initially dismissed as witnesses, toxicology reports revealed the couple had fentanyl in their systems and DeWitt proved to be the last person to see them alive. Following a trial at Chelmsford Crown Court, he was found guilty of murder and has been sentenced to a minimum of 37 years in prison.

An investigation found he created numerous false personas to deceive the Baxter family, including a doctor from Florida and a member of a support group for Hashimoto’s thyroid disease, which Mrs. Baxter has.

In a series of manipulative messages posing as Dr Andrea Bowden, he provided medical advice that had “no clinical basis”, such as encouraging Mrs Baxter to spend less time with loved ones.

He also pretended to be a theater producer to gain his daughter’s trust, and DeWitt helped Miss Baxter film a recording of the song and send it to “Jenny.”

Evidence emerged that Miss Baxter told jurors her parents thought DeWitt was “weird, but weird”.

She said he first got into their shower mat business around 2012 or 2013 to “help build the website” and later came to their home “every day.”

It was discovered he also had a “mobile security surveillance app” installed on his phone, which allowed him to monitor the cameras in the couple’s greenhouse.

In their final moments, he watched on his phone as the Baxters were first incapacitated by drugs and then died.

When he was arrested at his workplace, his bag contained fentanyl patches, both opened and unopened, which he claimed were from his father when he died in 2021.

Detective Superintendent Rob Kirby, of the Kent and Essex Serious Crime Agency, said outside court: “I am absolutely convinced that if he had not been caught he would have gone on to kill more people.”

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